The news is still full of stories about the large numbers of unemployed people in this country.However, the untold story is about people who face chronic underemployment. Not only are their skills sets not utilized fully, their salaries and salary growth suffers as well. Once a person finds herself taking a salary offer that is half of what she used to make, it is then a struggle to regain ground and raise the salary back to where it used to be. Employers do recognize that the salary growth gets reset every time you accept a position at a lower rate than you normally would because you need a job. However, reputable salary calculators are your best defense against getting low-balled or offered a miniscule salary. Gather your information. Search several different salary calculators for your position in your geographic location. Take careful notes, or even better, print out the salary graphs you find for your particular job of interest. Make sure that the figures you will take into salary negotiations with a potential employer match your education and work experience on your resume. You may find that the employer will not raise the salary offer even after you have tried to negotiate it. You may also find yourself in a perpetually temporary position, one with low wages and no benefits. If you have to take the temp position, go ahead and do it. However, you will need to set yourself a goal for leaving this position to find something else that pays better, is full time, and is more of what you want.
It used to be that the only ways to find a job were to look in the newspaper or watch for “Now Hiring” or “Help Wanted” signs (remember those days?). Not only was this inefficient, it was disappointing because there never seemed to be enough jobs or the right kind of job. Luckily, we now have a very useful tool for job searches–the Internet. The Internet is a very valuable thing in this day and sometimes we do not take advantage of all its perks. There are hundreds of job search sites that not only list jobs that are available, but allow you to post your resume to the site so that employers can see your resume and offer you a job before you have even talked to them. Many of these sites also have very good search filters that allow you to customize your job search from the job area to the hours to the place where the company is. This makes sorting through jobs much easier so you can find the job that is right for you in less time and start working sooner. These sites are built to make your life easier when searching for a job. Take advantage of them and try out a lot of them. Some of them may work better for you than others, but you will never know until you try them out. LinkedIn is another great internet ‘job hunting’ site. It’s a great place to expand your network by making new contacts, researching companies or roles you may be interested in, joining relevant groups where you can ‘mingle’ with people who are interested in what you do, or do what you do and may be able to help you get an ‘in’ to the company you want, and so on. There are many ways you can use this service and I would use it every day if job searching (yes, it’s that good!). Do not take the Internet for granted when searching for a job. While it doesn’t replace actual networking, it can save you time and disappointment and ultimately get you working much sooner.
When searching through candidates, executive recruiters typically ask three main questions about each candidate:
Can you do the job? This is all about your strengths, skills and experience
Will you love the job? This is all about your motivation and work ethic.
Can we tolerate working with you? This is all about how you will fit with the employees and employers already at the company.
You need to keep these in mind as you are working with the recruiter. Everything you think, do, and say when with the recruiter should be an attempt to answer those questions. You should mention your strengths and skills often, but not to the point that it becomes annoying or obnoxious. You should express how love and enjoyment of the field of work you are applying for and you should be fun, charismatic, and easy to be around. Expressing your skills and your love of the field is an easy enough thing to do, but it will not get you the job. No matter how qualified you are the recruiter will not want to bring you to the employers as an option if you are someone they find difficult to work with. This is why the third question is the one you need to focus on when preparing to meet a recruiter. Make sure to smile and try not be too uptight. I know that you are going to be nervous, but don’t let the recruiter know that. Let them think you are professional, but also laid back and easy to be around. Confident, even if you have to fake it. Show them that you can get the job done, but you can also be the kind of person they want to have lunch with because they enjoy your company. If you can do that, then you will impress the recruiter and will have a step above the other candidates, which will hopefully lead to you getting the job.
When you are out searching for a job it is very likely that you will never even see your potential employers, let alone meet them, until you get an interview.You will be giving your professional resume and applications to receptionists and other employees.
While you want to provide an image of who you are, you do not want to look unprofessional. You may feel like a fun and whimsical font is a better representation of your personality. That’s fine for informal or recreational documents, but not for your professional resume. Your font should serve two purposes: it should make your resume look professional and it should be easy to read. Using a font that does this will bring your resume–and your image–up a notch.
You may also want to avoid clip art or picture images in your resume. I once received a resume to critique that had dollar signs ($) where all the ‘S’s were and little clip art images of dollar bills throughout the document. While I got the meaning (the client was in finance), it was very distracting and, okay, very tacky-looking. Keep it clean, crisp and concise. Try not to write a resume novel. Your potential employers are reading through stacks of resumes and they want to be able to look and see immediately what makes one candidate better than another. Keeping it to a couple of pages will help keep the hiring manager from either rolling their eyes at your resume, or falling asleep.
Hopefully, these simple tips will help you understand why your professional resume is so important to creating your image and they will give you an idea of how to go about creating a professional resume that provides an image that employers want to have working for them.
When applying for a job, you are not going to be the only applicant. You will be competing for the job with dozens of other qualified candidates. With so many candidates, it is not unreasonable to fear your resume getting passed over or lost in the mix of things. In order to avoid that from happening you need to create a resume that will stand out from the crowd. While you want your resume to pop, you do not want it to be unprofessional. Here are some concepts to create an impressive resume that will stand out.
Eye Catching: You want your resume to catch your potential employer’s eye immediately so they spend time looking at your resume intently rather than just passing over it briefly. While it would be easy to do this using a wacky font, that is a bad idea. Using a wacky font looks unprofessional and can be hard to read. It might not look the same on their computer either. They might see an entirely different font. Instead, use a sans serif font. Another idea is to add a touch of color. Color in small doses can look great. This will catch their eye without looking unprofessional.
Professional: You do not want to give your potential employers a bad impression by having a resume that looks unprofessional. This means you need to keep it easily readable and organized. No wacky fonts, bright colors, or pictures (or words) that are large, obscene or vulgar. A small clip art that has to do with the job may be appropriate, but for the most part you should not put any pictures on your resume at all.
Impressive: Now that you have caught their eye and shown them a professional resume, you need to impress them with what you put on your resume. Keep them interested and invested in you by putting your greatest accomplishments, achievements, and job titles on your resume. This is what will make them want to call you in for an interview.
It can be hard to get your resume noticed in a sea of resumes that all look very similar, but if you can find a way to make your resume stand out without compromising professionalism, then you will be one step ahead and closer to getting an interview and landing a job.
It seems rather unfair that even after submitting a great resume and cover letter you still have to deal with tricky interview questions. The salary question is one of the most dreaded of all interview questions. It’s not surprising that few people are able to answer it in a professional manner beyond the standard “I expect to be paid what I’m worth” statement. For the job hunter, you need to understand what it is that your interviewer is really asking. When the interviewer asks, “What are your salary requirements?,” what he or she is really asking is whether or not you have a realistic salary expectation and if you are flexible about the amount. This is also why the interviewer would like you to list an actual dollar amount. Finding out what you are worth is easy enough. Visit one of the websites that offer salary ranges and see what you can expect. Be sure to account for your education and experience. Location is important as well; salaries in New York City are generally far higher than in Trenton, Tennessee. Once you have that information you are ready to respond. How should you respond to that question? Don’t shout out a number, but state that based on your education, experience and responsibilities of the position that $60-65,000 (or whatever amount you found) would be reasonable. Mention that you are flexible and would certainly consider benefits. While it is important to be seen as flexible and as someone who can be negotiated with, don’t settle for less than you can honestly afford. Most companies will be fair simply because if they aren’t you will move on to one that is and they have time invested in you. Still, find out what you are worth before your next interview and you will be prepared for this tricky question.
The experience problem is one that many new graduates and those reentering the workforce both face. Not only do employers want experience, they want recent experience. No one is more desired than one who is already trained and already working. When you are looking for a job from a position of unemployment, then you have to make yourself seem even more desirable than the other candidates. But how do you get experience when no one will give you a job so you can get experience? One way of doing this is to volunteer. No, you will not get paid but many volunteer opportunities lead to jobs and they can certainly lead to contacts. More importantly, they are something to put on your resume under ‘experience’ and that is a category that needs to be completed. No matter how much education you have, no matter how impressive your degrees or your university, experience trumps all of that. When including volunteer work you don’t have to specify that it was volunteer unless asked. It’s quite easy to calculate how much your position as a volunteer was worth by exploring one of the online salary calculators. Another way to get experience is as an unpaid intern. Few companies are going to turn away someone who is qualified and wants to work for free even if it is only part time. The bonus in this is that not only will you gain experience and networking contacts, you could also land a job. If a position in your area opens up the company is going to be more inclined to hire someone who already knows the job and how the company itself operates.
There are ways around the lack of experience issue. It just requires a little creativity and ingenuity.
Common wisdom suggests that when you have found a new job you quit hunting for a new one.This is a mistake that the vast majority of professionals make and it’s one that is typically detrimental to their careers. Constantly looking for new opportunities not only keeps you current with what positions are available, it also keeps you fresh in your current position. Continuing to search for a new position isn’t necessarily an active pursuit. When you are reasonably happy in your current position and not really looking to change either your career or your employer, job search takes on a more passive role. Much of what you do during an active job search is ignored, such as cold calling, applications and interviewing. In a passive job search you keep your resume updated and you occasionally examine what is open in your field. Networking is still a part of a passive job search, but instead of looking for a new job you are looking for contacts. Meetings, seminars and various network gatherings can be a fun way to meet new people as well as stay current in what your field is offering to new job candidates. It’s also a way to stay current on new trends in your area of expertise as well as current salary ranges; this can be helpful during your next salary negotiation or promotion meeting. Staying in the hunt for a new job also means that you are ready to hit the ground running should you suddenly need to make your passive search an active one. In an uncertain world it’s good to have this in your career arsenal.
